July 22, 2014

Smearmaster Glenn Greenwald's smear campaign against George W. Bush

AS they say - haters are going to hate and smearers are going to smear. Glenn Greenwald did not begin his smear career with President Obama - he was doing it way back before Obama came to the White House. It seems that he thinks that just because someone is in powerful position - that they are supposed to be criticized - Imagine that!~!


2008 Bill Moyer interview with Glenn Greenwald about the George W. Bush legacy

http://billmoyers.com/content/glenn-greenwald-on-the-george-w-bush-administration-and-the-rule-of-law/

He also wrote three books about the George W. Bush Administration; The New York Times-bestsellers How Would A Patriot Act? (2006) and Tragic Legacy (2007), and his 2008 release, Great American Hypocrites.

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Glenn Greenwald showed his true colors when he addressed a socialist/Trotskyite conference in 2013

July 22, 2014

I hope no one interprets this as sacrelege - I just thought it was so funny

My apologies to anyone who might be inadvertently offended.

July 20, 2014

How much empathy do you have? - a professional psychological test - The Empathy Quotient (EQ)

http://aspietests.org/eq/index.php




Here is another interesting test that measures one's empathy level. It should be noted that a person can be compassionate, sympathetic and quite willing to help others - but not necessarily very empathetic which requires an ability to spontaneously and intuitively understand what and how someone else is thinking and feeling.

http://aspietests.org/eq/index.php

July 9, 2014

The Quick and Easy Asperger's Test (Asperger's Syndrome is basically a mild version of Autism)

Asperger's Syndrome is basically a mild version of Autism. Many, probably most Asperger's Syndrome people hold normal jobs and live fairly normal lives - but with some difficulties. Of course as with all diagnosis there are severe and mild cases of Asperger's Syndrome and much in between.. An interesting quiz to say the least.

http://aspergersquiz.com/#fgY0tgDBttioiTEJ.01

If I may quote something from this website: This this quiz does NOT replace the examination and diagnosis that should ONLY be made by a trained medical/mental health professional. It is for informational purposes only. Ergo, if you believe that you have Asperger’s, or your quiz results point toward that possibility, it is your responsibility — to yourself, as well as those close to you — to seek the guidance and expertise of a medical/mental health professional."

Read more at http://aspergersquiz.com/#bGwsJqUY8l78ufvG.99

June 27, 2014

Is it true that there are more people alive today than have died in all of human history?

I had heard this stated any number of times as a scientific fact - I recall some years ago it being scientifically refuted. I was just curious what the accepted scientific opinion about this matter was

Fact or Fiction?: Living People Outnumber the Dead

Booming population growth among the living, according to one rumor, outpaces the dead


The human population has swelled so much that people alive today outnumber all those who have ever lived, says a factoid whose roots stretch back to the 1970s. Some versions of this widely circulating rumor claim that 75 percent of all people ever born are currently alive. Yet, despite a quadrupling of the population in the past century, the number of people alive today is still dwarfed by the number of people who have ever lived.

In 2002 Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau, a nongovernmental organization in Washington, D.C., updated his earlier estimate of the number of people that have ever existed. To calculate this, he studied the available population data to determine the human population growth rates during different historical periods, and used them to determine the number of people who have ever been born.

To calculate how many people have ever lived, Haub followed a minimalist approach, beginning with two people in 50000 B.C.—his Adam and Eve. Then, using his historical growth rates and population benchmarks, he estimated that slightly over 106 billion people had ever been born. Of those, people alive today comprise only 6 percent, nowhere near 75 percent. " almost surely true people alive today are some small fraction of people," says Joel Cohen, a professor of populations at the Rockefeller and Columbia Universities in New York City.

For this myth ever to be valid there would have to be more than 100 billion people living on Earth. "How cozy," Cohen says. "It just doesn't seem plausible," he adds.

Today there are more than 6.5 billion people walking on Earth, according to United Nations estimates.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-living-outnumber-dead/

June 26, 2014

Is it true that there are more people alive today than have died in all of human history?

I had heard this stated any number of times - I recall some years ago it being scientifically refuted. I was just curious what the accepted scientific opinion about this matter was.

Fact or Fiction?: Living People Outnumber the Dead

Booming population growth among the living, according to one rumor, outpaces the dead

The human population has swelled so much that people alive today outnumber all those who have ever lived, says a factoid whose roots stretch back to the 1970s. Some versions of this widely circulating rumor claim that 75 percent of all people ever born are currently alive. Yet, despite a quadrupling of the population in the past century, the number of people alive today is still dwarfed by the number of people who have ever lived.

In 2002 Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau, a nongovernmental organization in Washington, D.C., updated his earlier estimate of the number of people that have ever existed. To calculate this, he studied the available population data to determine the human population growth rates during different historical periods, and used them to determine the number of people who have ever been born.

To calculate how many people have ever lived, Haub followed a minimalist approach, beginning with two people in 50000 B.C.—his Adam and Eve. Then, using his historical growth rates and population benchmarks, he estimated that slightly over 106 billion people had ever been born. Of those, people alive today comprise only 6 percent, nowhere near 75 percent. "[It is] almost surely true people alive today are some small fraction of [all] people," says Joel Cohen, a professor of populations at the Rockefeller and Columbia Universities in New York City.

For this myth ever to be valid there would have to be more than 100 billion people living on Earth. "How cozy," Cohen says. "It just doesn't seem plausible," he adds.

Today there are more than 6.5 billion people walking on Earth, according to United Nations estimates.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-living-outnumber-dead/

June 12, 2014

Al Gore: Snowden Performed an ‘Important Service’ by Revealing Spying That Threatens Democracy

National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden (AP Photo/The Guardian)

Former Vice President Al Gore did not exactly break new ground when he said Tuesday that Edward Snowden had “provided an important service” by revealing to the extent to which the American government spies on people in the United States and abroad.

So Gore was, in many senses, simply restating a relatively mainstream view when, during a session at Tennessee’s Southland Technology + Southern Culture Conference, he was asked what PandoDaily refers to as the “Is he a traitor or a hero?” question. Gore responded:


I’m like most people, I don’t put (Snowden) in either one of those categories. But I will be candid—if you set up a spectrum, I would push it more away from the traitor side. He clearly violated the law; you can’t say OK what he did is alright. It is not.

But what he revealed in the course of violating important laws included violations of the Constitution that were way more serious than the crimes he committed. In the course of violating important laws he also provided an important service because we did need to know how far this has gone.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/180183/al-gore-snowden-performed-important-service-revealing-spying-threatens-democracy

June 3, 2014

Are you a Socialist?

Since some people asked - I am leaving the term "Socialist" open to the broadest possible definition ranging from Marxist or even Communist to those European style social-democrats who would call themselves socialist - Not all social-democrats would call themselves socialist - but many would. IN other words, do you consider yourselves a socialist?

May 31, 2014

"The Homosexuals": Mike Wallace's 1967 CBS Documentary

I saw this for the first time today.

Sometimes it is worthwhile to take a look back in time at just how hideous attitudes were within living memory of many of us. My goodness I would have been twelve going on thirteen when this documentary aired on nationwide TV. As ignorant as opinions are in this video - this would have been relatively liberal for the time. After all they did suggest that prison sentences for private sexual acts between consenting adults were probably not a good idea even though polling at the time suggested most Americans supported it.

May 29, 2014

Over all - do you support President Obama and his policies?